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<body>
<div class="document" id="lua-bindings-for-xapian">
<h1 class="title">Lua bindings for Xapian</h1>

<p>These bindings require Lua version 5.1 or later, and have been tested with Lua
5.1, 5.2 and 5.3.</p>
<p>The Lua bindings for Xapian are packaged in the <tt class="docutils literal">xapian</tt> namespace,
and largely follow the C++ API, with the following differences and
additions.</p>
<p>The <tt class="docutils literal">examples</tt> subdirectory contains examples showing how to use the
Lua bindings based on the simple examples from <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xapian-examples</span></tt>:
<a class="reference external" href="examples/simpleindex.lua">simpleindex.lua</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="examples/simplesearch.lua">simplesearch.lua</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="examples/simpleexpand.lua">simpleexpand.lua</a>.</p>
<p>There's also
<a class="reference external" href="examples/simplematchdecider.lua">simplematchdecider.lua</a>
which shows how to define a MatchDecider in Lua.</p>
<div class="section" id="unicode-support">
<h1>Unicode Support</h1>
<p>In Xapian 1.0.0 and later, the Xapian::Stem, Xapian::QueryParser, and
Xapian::TermGenerator classes all assume text is in UTF-8.  A Lua string
is an arbitrary sequence of values which have at least 8 bits (octets);
they map directly into the char type of the C compiler. Lua does not
reserve any value, including NUL. That means that Lua can store a UTF-8
string without problems.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="method-names">
<h1>Method names</h1>
<p>Most methods are named the same as in the C++ API - the exceptions are:</p>
<p><tt class="docutils literal">end</tt> is a keyword in Lua, so such methods are renamed to
<tt class="docutils literal">_end</tt> - e.g. in Lua you'd use <tt class="docutils literal">mset:_end()</tt> to get an
end iterator for an MSet object called mset.</p>
<p>The C++ method <tt class="docutils literal">get_description()</tt> is mapped to the
<tt class="docutils literal">tostring</tt> function in Lua, so <tt class="docutils literal">tostring(x)</tt> will return a string
describing object x.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="exceptions">
<h1>Exceptions</h1>
<p>Exceptions thrown by Xapian are translated into Lua xapian.Error objects
and raised as Lua errors, which you can catch by using <tt class="docutils literal">pcall</tt>
like so:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
ok,res = pcall(db.get_document, db, docid)
if ok then
   print(&quot;Got document data: &quot; .. res:get_data())
else
   print(&quot;Got exception: &quot; .. tostring(res))
end
</pre>
</div>
<div class="section" id="iterators">
<h1>Iterators</h1>
<p>All iterators support <tt class="docutils literal">next</tt> and <tt class="docutils literal">equals</tt> methods
to move through and test iterators (as for all language bindings).
MSetIterator and ESetIterator also support <tt class="docutils literal">prev</tt>. As &quot;end&quot; is
a keyword in Lua, we rename it to &quot;_end&quot; that means the end of the iterator.
The following shows an example of iterating the MSet to get the rank,
document id, and data for each entry in the MSet:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
for m in mset:items() do
   print(m:get_rank() + 1, m:get_docid(), m:get_document():get_data())
end
</pre>
</div>
<div class="section" id="iterator-dereferencing">
<h1>Iterator dereferencing</h1>
<p>C++ iterators are often dereferenced to get information, eg
<tt class="docutils literal">(*it)</tt>. With Lua these are all mapped to named methods, as
follows:</p>
<table border="1" class="docutils">
<colgroup>
<col width="45%" />
<col width="55%" />
</colgroup>
<thead valign="bottom">
<tr><th class="head">Iterator</th>
<th class="head">Dereferencing method</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td>PositionIterator</td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">get_termpos</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>PostingIterator</td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">get_docid</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>TermIterator</td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">get_term</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>ValueIterator</td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">get_value</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>MSetIterator</td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">get_docid</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>ESetIterator</td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">get_term()</tt></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Other methods, such as <tt class="docutils literal">MSetIterator:get_document</tt>, are
available under the same names.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="mset">
<h1>MSet</h1>
<p>MSet objects have some additional methods to simplify access (these
work using the C++ array dereferencing):</p>
<table border="1" class="docutils">
<colgroup>
<col width="47%" />
<col width="53%" />
</colgroup>
<thead valign="bottom">
<tr><th class="head">Method name</th>
<th class="head">Explanation</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal">get_hit(index)</tt></td>
<td>returns MSetItem at index</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal">get_documentPercentage(index)</tt></td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal">convert_to_percent(get_hit(index))</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal">get_document(index)</tt></td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">get_hit(index):get_document()</span></tt></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal">get_docid(index)</tt></td>
<td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">get_hit(index):get_docid()</span></tt></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>The C++ API contains a few non-class functions (the Database factory
functions, and some functions reporting version information), which are
wrapped like so for Lua:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::version_string()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.version_string()</tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::major_version()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.major_version()</tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::minor_version()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.minor_version()</tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::revision()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.revision()</tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::Auto::open_stub()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.open_stub()</tt> (but is now deprecated)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::Chert::open()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.chert_open()</tt> (but is now deprecated)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::InMemory::open()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.inmemory_open()</tt> (but is now deprecated)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::Remote::open()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.remote_open()</tt> (both the TCP and &quot;program&quot; versions are wrapped - the SWIG wrapper checks the parameter list to decide which to call).</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::Remote::open_writable()</span></tt> is wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.remote_open_writable()</tt> (both the TCP and &quot;program&quot; versions are wrapped - the SWIG wrapper checks the parameter list to decide which to call).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="constants">
<h1>Constants</h1>
<p>For Lua, constants are wrapped as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.CONSTANT_NAME</tt>
or <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.ClassName_CONSTANT_NAME</tt>.
So <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::DB_CREATE_OR_OPEN</span></tt> is available as
<tt class="docutils literal">xapian.DB_CREATE_OR_OPEN</tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Xapian::Query::OP_OR</span></tt> is
available as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.Query_OP_OR</tt>, and so on.</p>
<p>As of 1.3.2, you can also use the form <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.ClassName.CONSTANT_NAME</tt>, e.g.
<tt class="docutils literal">xapian.Query.OP_OR</tt>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="query">
<h1>Query</h1>
<p>In C++ there's a Xapian::Query constructor which takes a query operator and
start/end iterators specifying a number of terms or queries, plus an optional
parameter. In Lua, it is wrapped to accept Lua tables to give the terms/queries,
and you can specify a mixture of terms and queries if you wish.  For example:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
subq = xapian.Query(xapian.Query_OP_AND, {&quot;hello&quot;, &quot;world&quot;})
q = xapian.Query(xapian.Query_OP_AND, {subq, &quot;foo&quot;, xapian.Query(&quot;bar&quot;, 2)})
</pre>
</div>
<div class="section" id="matchall-and-matchnothing">
<h1>MatchAll and MatchNothing</h1>
<p>These are wrapped for Lua as <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.Query_MatchAll</tt> and
<tt class="docutils literal">xapian.Query_MatchNothing</tt>.</p>
<p>As of 1.3.2, you can also use the forms <tt class="docutils literal">xapian.Query.MatchAll</tt> and
<tt class="docutils literal">xapian.Query.MatchNothing</tt>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="enquire">
<h1>Enquire</h1>
<p>There is an additional method <tt class="docutils literal">get_matching_terms</tt> which takes
an MSetIterator and returns a list of terms in the current query which
match the document given by that iterator.  You may find this
more convenient than using the TermIterator directly.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="matchdecider">
<h1>MatchDecider</h1>
<p>Custom MatchDeciders can be created in Lua in the form of lua function; simply
function ensures you create a subclass of xapian.MatchDecider, which calls
the super-constructor, and overloads the operator method to callback the lua function
that will do the work. The simplest example (which does nothing
useful) would be as follows:</p>
<pre class="literal-block">
function mymatchdecider(doc)
   return 1
end
</pre>
</div>
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